First, let's look at the recent meeting of evangelical minds on the generally anti-Trump side of things. While it's good to see a stalwart group of people committed to seeking the ways of faith, this meeting seems a bit disappointing in its ultimate outcomes. As Jemar Tisby has asked, what is it about white evangelical theology that either tends toward Trumpism, or lacks the resources to stand firmly against it? Beatty's piece points to a few of the spiritual strongholds to which evangelicalism turns something of a blind eye; while I would have liked to see more analysis of these tensions, the fear of addressing racism head on – whether spurred from the threats of their donors or their own sinful hearts – is, if not the ultimate root, certainly deep near the source of the rot in the American Church (more on this later). Ruth Graham's piece on the mutual embrace of Trump and Christian TV networks is a fantastic look at how American Christians are uniquely vulnerable to sentimental appeals to false nostalgia:
- Sarah Pulliam Bailey, WaPo, Dozens of evangelical leaders meet to discuss how Trump era has unleashed ‘grotesque caricature’ of their faith
- Emily McFarlan Miller, Religion News Service, Evangelical leaders discuss future of their movement in Trump era
- Hollis Phelps, Religion Dispatches, Maybe It's Time to Admit That the "Grotesque Caricature" of White Evangelicals Is the Reality
- Katelyn Beaty, New Yorker, At a Private Meeting in Illinois, a Group of Evangelicals Tried to Save Their Movement from Trumpism
- Ruth Graham, Politico, Church of the Donald
So, we have a crisis. Jake at Mere Orthodoxy gives a solid overview of where we stand at the moment, surveying the cultural situation in which we find ourselves, the challenges of racism, sexism, and doctrinal understanding in America's pews (for example, see Abigail Rine Favale's piece on her students' lack of creedal knowledge), and he wonders whether the American Church is adequately equipped to address the needs of the refugees of our collapsing culture:
- Jake Meador, MereO, The Crisis in Christian Discipline and the Opportunity Before Us
- Abigail Rine Favale, First Things, Evangelical Gnosticism
These cultural challenges manifest in the churches within that culture. For instance, American capitalism makes us skeptical of the Bible's warnings about the sinful allure of riches; our ingrained work ethic and ethos of self-reliance make us prize work above rest:
- John Piper, Desiring God, Do the Biblical Warnings Against Riches Apply to Most Americans?
- Elizabeth Bruenig, WaPo, America is obsessed with the virtue of work. What about the virtue of rest?
- Rebecca Jones, CT, Lord, Save Me from My Side Hustle
In the white American Church, we have a particular struggle with racism. It should not be hard to admit the deepness of this particular sin in our collective past, and there is no escaping its legacy within our own hearts. We should, as confessing Christians, all be willing to confront sin in all its forms, called as we are to let judgement begin at the house of God, but we struggle even to agree on the lasting legacy of our racial sins. Even churches who ostensibly acknowledge these evils still struggle to eradicate them in practice.
- Kevin DeYoung, TGC, Racial Reconciliation: What We (Mostly, Almost) All Agree On, and What We (Likely) Still Don’t Agree On
- Thabiti Anyabwile, TGC, Admitting Things
- Michelle Boorstein, WaPo, What happens when a church dedicated to fighting white supremacy is accused of it
It isn't just in the Church that these crises manifest. Enormous forces of questionable intent (look, we know it's BAD intent, let's be real) surreptitiously record our every move. The supposedly innocuous pasttime of social media has been hijacked by malicious forces, maneuvering into the malleable minds of young people seeking quick riches. Kyle Chayka's fantastic essay on Big Data's forays into the world of fashion brings up the excellent question of whether capitalism possesses the resources to craft an identity that is not merely an expression of homogeous algorithmic consumerism:
- Peter Waldman, Lizette Chapman, & Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg, Palantir Knows Everything About You
- Symeon Brown, The Guardian, Fake it till you make it: meet the wolves of Instagram
- Kyle Chayka, Racked, Style Is an Algorithm
Indeed, as many have noted about Patrick Deneen's recent book, the very roots of our political and economic system, despite its many benefits and ostensible goods, undermine the very virtue and moderation necessary to maintaining it:
- Jon Médille, Front Porch Republic, Why Anti-Liberalism Fails
- Jonathan Leeman, CT, How Freedom Became an American Idol
- Jake Meador, MereO, Book Review: Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen
Our culture is death-oriented; it does not value the lives of the poor, or of black people, of children. We can see other iterations in the parallel death-orientations of India and China, with their trends of sex-selective abortion and China's one-child policy starting to show their massive consequences:
- Eve Tushnet, Institute for Family Studies, What's Wrong With the "Success Sequence"
- Linda Villarosa, NYT Mag, Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis
- Mark R Rank, NYT, The Cost of Keeping Children Poor
- Simon Denyer & Annie Gowan, WaPo, Too Many Men
- Alex Grant, Christ & Pop Culture, City of God and the Ends of American Politics
- Thabiti Anyabwile, TGC, What Can I Do? / What Do You Want?
- Matthew Loftus, MereO, Stay Woke, Cultivate Virtue
Our view of life must be expanded, inverted even, to see how our own weakness is revealed and Christ's love is reflected in caring for those more vulnerable than ourselves:
- Leah Libresco Sargent, First Things, The Weak Lead Us to Reality
- Corey Latta, CT, My Son's Down Syndrome Showed Me the Real Imago Dei
We must open our homes to others, not as performance to show off our accumulation of cultural signifiers, but as a step towards more fully opening ourselves to the love and service of others – plus, it's a great opportunity to step into a real-life fantasy novel, where good food is abundant:
- Brandon McGinley, MereO, Stop Making Hospitality Complicated
- Lindsey Carlson, CT, Rosaria Butterfield: Christian Hospitality Is Radically Different from ‘Southern Hospitality’
- Anne Ewbank, Atlas Obscura, Why Do Fantasy Novels Have So Much Food?
It isn't merely American Protestants feeling the strain of modernity; the Roman Church, too, is in flux, searching for a new balance between cultural assimilation and distinctiveness, and flirting (perhaps dangerously) with adapting to social changes at the expense of sound doctrine and reliable tradition:
- Tara Isabella Burton, Vox, Pope Francis reportedly denies the existence of Hell. Vatican panics.
- Emma Green, The Atlantic, A Cassandra Cry Against Pope Francis
As James Davison Hunter has observed, we're all Protestants now, enmeshed inexorably in Charles Taylor's "secular age." How do we maintain discipline in a world where an authoritative admonishment might be seen as causing sufficient friction to break with a church, and where another church, more fitting to one's consumer preferences, is readily available? How also do we speak the truth in love to those shaped by such a world, walking a road to recovery alongside sinners that may be longer than we imagine?
- Wesley Hill, MereO, The Confusions and Dangers of a Church of Mercy: Anglican Musings on a Catholic Dispute
- Wesley Hill, Covenant, Five Theses on Church Discipline
- Gracy Olmstead, Intercollegiate Review, What Wendell Berry Can Show Zuckerberg Types About Making a Better World
- Gracy Olmstead, NYT, Can 'Localism' Restore Sanity to U.S. Politics?
In the interest of locality, then, we turn to Baltimore, to see the manifestation of our more local crises. As with the larger, problems, national or ecclesial, here are no easy solutions, whether it is the closing of small businesses, the reforming of an utterly corrupt police department, the tension between revitalization and gentrification, or the ramifications of the national War on Drugs on a particular city:
- Jessica Anderson, Baltimore Sun, Team overseeing Baltimore Police consent decree assures public of progress despite turnover in department
- Amanda Yeager, Baltimore Business Journal, 'We always joked it was a bridge too far:' O'Flynn's owner says distance led to South Baltimore restaurant's closure
- Fern Shen, Baltimore Brew, “AS OF A NOW” shows Baltimore rowhouses not vacant, but full of generations of “quiet stories”
- Siddhartha Mitter, The Guardian, Gentrify or die? Inside a university's controversial plan for Baltimore
- Jessica Lussenhop, BBC, When Cops Become Robbers
- Ron Cassie, Baltimore Magazine, The Vindication of Kurt Schmoke
In past times of crisis, there are been voices of prophetic wisdom cutting through the melee; Andrea Barnet looks at the overlaps between Rachel Carson and Jane Jacobs, who both saw the contradictions and consequences of technocratic modernity and spoke forcefully against its destructive systems. Would that we might listen more closely to the women speaking out with such wisdom now; after all, it is not merely straight, white, middle-class Protestant males that the country is supposed to be for (even if this is usually how the game seems to be rigged):
- Andrea Barnet, Paris Review, The Age of Wreckers and Exterminators
- Nicola A Menzie, Faithfully Magazine, Interview: Karen A Ellis Talks Christian Persecution
- Jill Radsken, Faithfully Magazine, Rachael Denhollander Says Don't Trust the Church or Christianity – Trust Jesus Christ
- Patricia Lockwod, Tin House, How Do We Write Now?
- Rebecca Solnit, LitHub, Whose Story (and Country) Is This?
- David J Michael, America, Alan Jacobs: A Christian intellectual for the Internet age
- Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, Randa Jarrar, Moral Grandstanding, and Forbearance
- Charlie Clark, The Boro.ist, In Search of Character: The Narrative Concept of Selfhood
- Duke Kwon, TGC, The Underrated Strategic Value of Church Buildings
- Eben Weiss, Outside, The Ethics of Breaking Traffic Laws
- Cathy Lynn Grossman, Publishers Weekly, Reading Is a Spiritual Act, Publishers Say
- Larissa Pham, LitHub, The Bottomless Generosity of the Writer's Memoir
- Megan McArdle, WaPo, A farewell to free journalism
And we must recognize our own limits, too. We are embodied creatures and our bodies are frail. We cannot solve every problem; we must find our rest in the God who made Heaven and Earth and plans to remake them. As Augustine wrote, our hearts are restless until they rest in Him, and these are truly restless times. It is a gift to participate in the emergence of His Kingdom, and part of that gift is that He is not bound by our great limitations and failures.
- Kaitlyn Scheiss, Letters from the Exile, Feet On the Earth
